


Olde Time Heroes

by drakonlily



Category: 999: Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 21:26:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drakonlily/pseuds/drakonlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clover's frantic phone call sends Snake to ask Junpei for help. Together they will follow the trail of one red ball and hopefully find Clover before something tragic befalls her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Olde Time Heroes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crankyoldman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crankyoldman/gifts).



Snake wasn't used to the phone ringing at five in the morning. Surprises, he'd found out, were rarely fun. Typically for him, they ended in waking up on a ship running for his life and scaring his sister half to death. He grumbled and flopped his hand about for his phone. Clover should have been yelling about the noise by now.

It was odd that she was so quiet. He held the phone near his ear, but didn't push the button to speak. No, it was only three years. Clover was in college, only 21. Not nine years yet, he didn't have any reason to be afraid. If she hadn't complained of the noise it was because she fell asleep with her headphones on again.

After he breathed, Snake hit the answer button.

"LIGHT!" Clover's voice screamed on the line. "Snake it's me! The Fun-" there was shouting and then a smash as the phone was broken and the line screeched dead.

Slowly, Snake pulled the phone away from his ear. He left it suspended, as though he expected it to ring again. The item remained cold and silent in his shaking hand. Still as death, he sat on the bed and tried to make sense of what was going on. His first instinct was to go into Clover's room. Though he didn't need to, his hands dragged along each wall, the bubbled feeling of the college apartment's wall paper were familiar. The feeling of the worn end table that Seven had given them when he moved in with Lotus, was grounding as though it carried his strength. Everything was on alert. Snake didn't feel any strange breeze; he didn't feel anything out of place. Once Snake was in Clover's room he fought to remain in control.

The room smelled of her. Her shampoo, her hard days, a smell that was quintessentially her own. Snake took a deep breath and grit his teeth. Clover was his little sister, his only living family. Her safety was his responsibility. How could he have let this happen? This wasn't a game. It-

-his foot brushed something. Almost as if he was falling Snake dropped on the item. Clover left her room neat. She never dropped anything on the floor because she didn't want Snake to trip. His hands gripped the item, it was a ball; it squeaked. His thumb probed a hole in the ball, the item gave way as though it were meant to fit about his thumb or something the same size.

It gave a tired, long, squeak as Snake's fist closed firmly about it again and he got up off the floor. He'd need help and there was only one person that he knew of who lived close enough to be swift. If this wasn't someone playing a game, then that meant there may not be rules. With no rules, there was no telling what could happen to Clover.

\-----------------

Junpei's first class wasn't until nine, why was his phone ringing? He reached for his phone and then remembered that he left it plugged in on his kitchen table on the other side of his studio apartment. Why had he done that? He nearly fell out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen. The phone informed him that Snake was calling and that it was six in the morning on Saturday.

He fumbled with the idea of pretending to sleep through it. The last time that he and Snake had hung out… Snake never made it home and Clover stormed Junpei's apartment at nine in the morning. Clover was small, but utterly terrifying when confronting someone in bed with her brother and without his shirt.

Or pants.

They had boxers on! Nothing happened!

But it was awful early…

"Hey Snake, been a while." So he was going to try to sound nonchalant and smooth. Not an easy feat for this early.

"Have you heard from June." Snake hissed June's name, nearly sounding like the actual reptile.

This was confusing. "…no?"

"Junpei I'm not joking with you!" Snake was angry and confusing. More so angry. "Clover called me… she yelled and – and-"

"Snake?" Junpei felt his chest knot. It had taken more than a few years for people to get him to stop looking for June. To give up on her and admit to being used. To hear Snake hiss her name with such hate, considering everything that was happening with him, felt like being hit in the gut.

"Someone took Clover!"

"I'll be there in five minutes"

\-----------------

Junpei parked in the closest spot he could find. His concern grew when he realized it was Clover's spot and her car wasn't in it. Clover would never just leave her brother anywhere. Not alone, she teased him from time to time, but she was not the sort that would pull a mean prank like this. She and Snake were far too close.

When he arrived at the apartment Snake was dressed and holding a red clown nose in his palm. He tilted his head at Junpei when he entered the living room. "What is this?"

Junpei's stomach continued to lurch. Snake rarely asked questions. He looked horribly broken, as if he'd failed at something. Junpei supposed that he wouldn't have ever seen a clown nose up close, Clover mentioned being afraid of Clowns once before. "It's a clown's nose." He offered quietly.

"A nose?"

"Yeah, clowns wear them. They… squeak?"

Snake squeaked it once, slowly, at the word. "We need to go to a … a funhouse I think."

Junpei jingled his keys. He didn't need to ask questions.

\-----------------

There was, at one point, a carnival ground outside of the university. While the carnival was not year round, many of the structures were, including the funhouse. It was the only place that Junpei could think of. These days it was a place that people rarely went to. Aside from ghost hunters and desperate drinkers, the place was a dead zone. Junpei pulled up the overgrown road. "Hey, tire tracks!"

Snake didn't say anything, he only nodded. Junpei feathered the gas as he followed the tracks. Sure enough, they lead to Clover's small, orange, car. The trunk was popped open. "It's her car!"

Junpei's own vehicle wasn't even in park when Snake leapt from the passenger seat. He skidded on the dirt and gravel and ran up to where Clover's car was sitting. His hands drifted over the sides, then the hood. "It's still warm."

Junpei was looking over the trunk. There were dents inside, probably from Clover kicking. She was alive, when they brought her. Junpei stepped around the driver's side. "I don't see any blood or even her keys." There was no jacket, or drag marks. "She must have been carried."

"Couldn't have been Santa or June then." Snake muttered half to himself. "Neither of them could have carried Clover without dropping her." He put his hand on his chin in thought. "At least not alone."

"June wouldn't have done anything like this!"

"No, she only killed three people to get her own life back."

Junpei bit back the automatic response he had to defend his childhood friend. He didn't want to talk about June with Snake. It felt too strange. "Let's just find her."

\-----------------

Snake hated funhouses. He didn't like walls and floors that moved and jumped. Doors that lead to nowhere and stairways that turned into slides were dangerous for a blind man. Without being able to experience the colors and laughs, Snake felt the whole place was rather rude.

The aforementioned stairs snapped to slide mode the moment after he hoped that they wouldn't. The next thing Snake knew he was grappling at Junpei in front of him and clamoring for a foothold on something. He hadn't exactly meant to grab a hold of the other man's thigh. It wasn't helping them anyway.

Junpei tried, at first to be calm and old still, but he lost his grip on whatever railing he had located and the two of them slid through a new opening in the floor. There was a cushion of sorts at the bottom of the slide, but it was old and did a rather poor job of being soft.

The wind rushed from Snake's lungs as Junpei flopped on top of him. He was not expecting Junpei's hands to grasp between his legs. "Hey!"

He could feel Junpei's cheeks get hot. "Sorry! Sorry! It's pitch black in here."

"Yes, I can tell."

There was a pause. "Har. Har. Har."

Junpei groped around above Snake and located something to help pull them both up. At that moment blinding lights clicked on and some old time music began to play. Junpei hissed and covered his eyes. Snake's hand grasped his shoulder.

"Welcome, gentlemen!"

Junpei's eyes were still focusing when Snake yelled "Ace!" Junpei blinked until the room began to come into view. They were in the back of a small theater. As the haze of white light drifted away he could make out the stage. Dramatically poised at the center was Ace, dressed up as a black and white movie villain, complete with top hat and small cape. At his feet, tied to an elaborate looking guillotine was Clover. She was struggling.

"She's alive." Junpei said. Snake relaxed, though his jaw remained set.

Ace flourished the cape. "Nice to see you again, Light! Good for me that your little sister here has such ludicrous hair. And thankfully you're blind, so you can't see how horribly short this skirt is."

"Leave her alone!" Snake snarled.

If Ace were wearing a mustache he would have twirled it. "But she's so fun!"

"Look, what do you want?" Junpei snapped. He watched the strange scene. Ace held the rope to the guillotine and Clover… Clover was pulling her shirt off? Junpei was glad that Ace couldn't see eyes or faces. His own were trying to figure out what the pink haired woman was doing. She had slipped nearly free before Junpei realized that whatever Ace had tied her with was holding onto her long sleeved hoodie. The bulk of the garment left room for her to wriggle free.

"I want payback!" Ace declared. He motioned with the hand holding the release rope to the blade. "Everything was going so well, but none of you would just die! If you would have just died then I would have been able to prove my research. I would have been finally able to see-"

"-I'm blind every day of my life!" Snake crossed his arms over his chest and adjusted his stance as though he were scolding a child. "You don't see me killing people over it!"

"Well-" Ace smiled. "It's not my fault you lack vision." Before he was able to snap the cape, Ace yelped and toppled to the side. The blade was released and swished shut.

"CLOVER!?" Snake was already running, tearing down the center parting of seats. "Clover!"

"You fucking little – HEY!" Ace rolled to the side and onto his feet. It was lucky for him, because his top hat was now impaled on the not-so-prop sword in Clover's hand. With both Junpei and Snake rushing up the stage, Ace looked thwarted. "Fine, it was just a preview then." He dropped a canister that spewed a foul smelling purple smoke. It stung when it got into the eyes and in the haze, Ace vanished

Clover was fanning the mess away with the top hat. Between coughs she motioned to Junpei. "Give me your shirt."

Junpei blinked away tears. "What?"

"Your shirt, I'm not letting you ogle my brother."

"Clover!" Snake was breathing into his sleeve. "We've discussed this."

"Shirt. Junpei."

With a growl, Junpei pulled his shirt off.

"What the hell?"

"What now?!" Junpei knew he wasn't exactly a body builder, but he felt that he was fairly well built, not to be vain.

Clover was turning a note over in her hand, not critiquing his physique. She unfolded it. "Ace, darling… maybe we should discuss your love of those crappy old movies. Signed, June…"

"June?" Junpei looked at the ground and clenched his fist. Of course she'd reach out to Ace. Ace was wealthy enough to do whatever he wished. And he was easily disengaged from reality. Junpei had already served his purpose, hadn't he?

Snake's hand closed around his. "Let's just go, alright? We'll call Seven from my apartment."

He squeezed the hand back.


End file.
